Friday, September 30, 2011

As released yesterday, Prisoner Hunger Strike Solidarity has confirmed that at least 6,000 California prisoners in jails, General Population, Administrative Segregation (Ad-Seg/ASU) and Security Housing Units (SHUs) are hunger striking for the human rights of California’s SHU-status prisoners. We have confirmed prisoners are striking at Pelican Bay, Calipatria, CCI Tehachapi, Centinela, Corcoran, Chuckawalla Valley State Prison, and West Valley Detention Center.

The California Department of Corrections & Rehabilitation (CDCR) has not released the total number of prisons, or which prisons prisoners are striking at. The CDCR withheld accurate numbers for several days after the first round of the strike in July until we pressured reporters to investigate and force the CDCR to release information. We know the CDCR is not releasing accurate numbers, and that many more prisoners are participating and supporting the strike in various ways.

The CDCR has also upped retaliation on the strike by deeming the entire strike a prison “disturbance” under Title 15. The CDCR has delivered memos to prisoners at each state prison threatening that any participation or support for the hunger strike will result in disciplinary actions, such as placement in Ad-Seg/ASU or SHUs (for prisoners currently in General Population), increased destructive cell searches, removal of canteen items, and worse.Â We know that a number of prisoners lost their jobs as added punishment for supporting the strike in July.

The spreading strike and overwhelming international support for it demonstrate the seriousness of torture throughout the prison industrial complex. It is no coincidence that the first round of the hunger strike followed the US Supreme Court’s finding that CA’s prison system is in violation of the 8th Amendment’s prohibition of cruel and unusual punishment. Not surprisingly, the CDCR is criminalizing the strike and insisting that the hunger strikers are violent gang members that deserve to be tortured. Meanwhile, we face similar struggles against criminalization outside prison, as cities across CA are stepping up suppression policing tactics, such as gang injunctions, youth curfews and loitering ordinances, inevitably sweeping more people from working class communities of color into prison.

On top of all of that, the state’s realignment plan gives us a huge opportunity to get people out of prison but also adds the threat of unprecedented jail construction to this landscape.
Given this “perfect storm,” we can and must connect our struggles and continue to vigorously defend our communities and unleash our will to resist and organize.

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Prison officials in California confirmed on Thursday, September 29, that more than 4,000 inmates have been on a hunger strike since Monday.

It’s the second time this year that inmates have refused food to protest a prison system’s use of Security Housing Units — known as “the SHU” — to control prison gangs.

They were also protesting inhumane prison policies, including a policy that allowed nearly half of Pelican Bay’s 1,111 prisoners to be held in solitary confinement for more than ten years. According to the California Department of Corrections, 78 prisoners have been held in solitary confinement for more than 20 years.

Hunger Strike In July

As Care2′s Amelia Thomson DeVeaux wrote here, prisoners at Pelican Bay, a maximum-security prison in northern California, began a hunger strike in July to protest their conditions in the solitary unit. The strike quickly spread to other prisons, and eight days later, the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation admitted that at least 6,600 prisoners in at least 13 of the state’s prisons were refusing food.

After three weeks, prison officials announced that California inmates had ended the hunger strike at Pelican Bay State Prison in Del Norte County, near the California/Oregon border, when prison officials agreed to a change in SHU policies.

Prison Officials Have Not Made Good On Promises

But now the hunger strike is back on. Prisoners at Pelican Bay State Prison’s SHU who led that month-long hunger strike in July say prison officials have not made good on promises to meet their original demands, and that they have no other choice but to go back on strike.

Each day, inmates in the SHU at Pelican Bay get 15 minutes to shower, and a little over an hour to exercise in a concrete yard.

They spend the rest of the day — nearly 23 hours — locked in their cells. No phone calls. No physical contact with visitors. The Department of Corrections says the SHU was designed to punish and control inmates that run prison gangs. Inmates say it’s a form of torture to coerce them to “rat” on other prisoners so they can get out of the SHU.

Pelican Bay and Calipatria State Prison Joining Forces

Prisoners in Pelican Bay are being joined by around 100 prisoners in Calipatria State Prison, located in the southeastern side of California, in their hunger strike this time, say members of the coalition Prison Hunger Strike Solidarity.

“Inmates have felt that the California Department of Corrections is not negotiating in good faith,” said Isaac Ontiveros, a member of Prison Hunger Strike Solidarity. “The negotiations that led to the suspension of the strike in July were because prisoners felt like, ‘OK, there’s been a semblance of good faith negotiation.’

Ontiveros said in the interim, prison inmates reported that not only had those negotiations gone nowhere, but prison guards had also begun intimidating and retaliating against those who had organized or participated in the hunger strike this summer.

The California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation needs to step up and take care of this problem without delay.

Thursday, September 29, 2011

Kathmandu, 25 September: In the inner struggle of UCPN-Maoist party in Nepal, new and new ideas and the style of two line struggle are being developed in the course struggle. Many political and other analysts have said that the party splits and the interest of the reactionaries will be fulfilled.

However, the fight has developed its historically advanced procedures for inner struggle. The party has already developed some ideas by creating the authentic forum of discussion and separate gathering and interaction by the ideological factions. This is the latest development because the revisionism and the reformism that has came into existence in the course of exercising the people’s power in the local and regional levels of the nation. We are in that situation where we have to evaluate the history of the people’s powers, their exercises and the emergence of the reformism and the revisionism in the world. The real exercise is being implemented in Nepal. The party, UCPN-Maoist, has been divided into three ideological factions: revolutionary, revisionism and reformism.

Now the entire party is in the intense inner struggle. It has not yet been decided which will win. Nevertheless, revolutionary faction is offending and fighting with the help of the people, supporters, well wishers and the strong team all over the country.

Wednesday, September 28, 2011

The senior leaders of UCPN ( Maoist) vice chairman Comrade Mohan Baidhya ‘Kiran’ and General secretary Comrade Rambahadur Thapa issuing a press release have condemned the statement given by Sarat Singh Bhandari, defence minister of Babu Ram Bhattarai’s government. The senior comrades have mentioned: ‘The statement of defence minister is against national integrity. It is the master plan of national surrender and a grand design of Sikkimisation. Defence Minister’s anti-national statement has hurt the sentiments of general public’. In their press release, they have demanded the Babu Ram Bhattarai’s government to make public its opinion on the issue and to boot out Bhandari.

Bhandari the other day had threatened to split 22 Tarai districts of the country from the nation-state of which he is himself a minister.

The revolutionary faction lead by Comrade Baidhya, has decided to stage nationwide demonstration against Bhandari and Babu Ram Bhattarai’s government. Today Sister organisations supporting the revolutionary line have decided to take to the street to protest defense Minister Sarat Singh Bhandari’s recent statement that ”if 22 Terai districts decide to secede no law in Nepal can stop such a step.”

In fact, it is proven that 4pt deal, the base of this government is oriented to the anti-national and counter-revolutionary direction. No doubt, it is the puppet government of India . Now the days of Babu Ram Bhattarai are numbered. In a very short period, he has proven himself as a true servant of Indian expansionism.

PM Bhattarai, who is also the vice chairman of the UCPN (Maoist) party, reached Dahal’s residence in Nayabazaar today morning and discussed the achievements of his recent visit to New York to attend the 66th session of the UN General Assembly.

The duo also discussed the agendas of the party’s central committee (CC) meeting scheduled to start from September 30 and ways to counter the severe opposition they are facing from the revolutionary wing of the party led by senior vice chairman Mohan Baidya aka Comrade Kiran to conclude the ongoing peace process by completing the task of army integration and timely constitution drafting.

It is learnt that the two top leaders of the ruling Maoist party, who belong to the revisionist wing , were in favor of postponing the CC meet and holding it only after the week-long Dashain festival.

The CC meet has been called by Mohan Baidya following the dispute among party’s top leadership over the handover of the keys to the PLA arms containers.

Mohan Baidya has termed the handover of the keys of the arms containers as “suicidal” and detrimental to the party’s interests.

This Article first published on NEXT FRONT from Nepal and is re-published on Democracy and Class Struggle.

(We have got this article through our friend Prem Pathak from Holland. Thanks to Prem Pathak and N.G. Rajaretnam for making this article available. We all know, Nepalese revolution is at the crossroads and the revolutionaries within the UCPN ( Maoist) are fighting against the revisionists. It is our strong confidence that revolutionary line will prevail over the counter-revolutionary line and we will be succeed to reorganize our party–a party of revolutionary spirit.
The decision by the Unified Communist Party Nepal (Maoist) chairman Prachanda and vice-chairman Baburam Bhattarai to hand over of the keys of the arms containers in the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) cantonments holding some of the weapons of the PLA soldiers in first week of September 2011 triggered a fresh round of internal Party struggle. Within a day, thousands upon thousands of people, including large numbers of Party members and its supporters gathered in the national capital, Kathmandu and several parts of the country to protest against the decision, holding night time flaming torch rallies amid very angry demonstrations.

The people saw the symbolic hand-over of the keys to a ‘special committee’ of the Constituent Assembly/parliament as a surrender of the revolution in Nepal.

Behind the ‘hand-over’ are issues over how the integration of the PLA with the Nepal Army (NA) would proceed. While a radical faction of the UCPN (Maoist) led by Baidya Poudal ‘Kiran’ wanted integration involving whole units, whether whole brigades or battalions with their chains of commands, ultimately responsible to the Party, another faction, led by Bhattarai has been willing to submit to what the Nepal Congress (NC) and the Communist Party Nepal (UML) had all along been demanding: induction of a very limited number of PLA fighters with the NA, and this, only on an individual basis, with the Maoist party giving up its leadership role of the PLA. The rest of the PLA soldiers would be ‘rehabilitated’, that is, given jobs as unarmed forest guards or security guards at industrial zones and installations.

The hand-over of the arms container keys signify the dissolution of the people’s army. It is a great departure from Mao tse-tung’s reminder, “Without a people’s army the people have nothing” and “political power grows out of the barrel of a gun.” It also signifies the capitulation of the revolution.

The deal struck with a united group of Madheshi parties by the Prachanda-Bhattarai factions of the UCPN (Maoist), apparently mediated by the Reasearch and Analysis Wing (RAW), the Indian intelligence service, enabled Bhattarai to be appointed as the Prime Minister. But it also was conditioned on the ‘integration and rehabilitation’ on the basis demanded by Nepal Army, NC and the UML as well as surrendering the keys of the arms containments.

Neither Prachanda nor Bhattarai had consulted or even informed vice-chairmen, Kiran and Narayan Kaji Shrestha and the Party Secretary and the Party’s in-charge for military affairs, Ram Bahadur Thapa ‘Badal’ on the decision to hand over the containers’ keys. It was decided in secrecy and carried out by stealth. Indeed, the Party Central Committee and Standing Committee had earlier rejected Prachanda’s proposal of the key-surrender.

Kiran and Badal protested the hand-over vehemently and called for public protest against this outrage.

It is crystal clear that the Prachanda-Bhattarai factions are now working as one party, colluding with the Indian state and the parties serving as political agents of foreign big capital. Bhattarai is even speaking of managing the dissent in the UCPN (Maoist). Left out of vital decision-making is the Kiran faction, now joined by Badal. It is a fact of life in the UCPN (Maoist) that there two distinct political centres with two diametrically opposed political lines and ideologies. Today, they are at logger heads.

Prachanda has, since the signing of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement in 2006, been utilising the existence of the PLA in the cantonments as a bargaining chip with his negotiations with other political parties (NC, UML and the Madheshi parties) ranged against the Maoists.

He has been using two very different tones and approaches. With the political parties of the reaction he has been seeking to appease them and reassure them that the Maoist Party would abide by the CPA and bring the peace-process to a conclusion and make drafting a new constitution as a matter of priority. To the Party cadre and to those who aspire revolutionary change for Nepal, he has been claiming that he sees that there is no option to the completion of the New Democratic Revolution through a people’s insurrection. Indeed, since the November, 2010 Palungtar Conference, he has even uttered that he will lead in turning the factories and student hostels into barracks.

With the elimination of the PLA factor now, he sees that he has rid himself of a lingering and persistent problem. He has won acceptability in Nepal’s parliamentary politics. He can now claim that he is a responsible politician of the republic as much as other politicians of the status quo.

But he has also lost an important means of negotiation for any meaningful change he might have intended to bring about through his leadership of the UCPN (Maoist).

It is well known that there have been three factions within the UCPN (Maoist) for sometime. One faction is led by Prachanda, the chairman himself. Another faction, following Bhattarai’s thinking, has spoken in favour of ‘capitalist development’ for Nepal. Its spokespeople and cadres openly advocate bringing changes through reforms within the constraints of electoral politics of the status quo, that is, within the semi-colonial, semi-feudal social relations plaguing Nepal.

Sunday, September 25, 2011

CP Gajurel stated that the four-point deal between the UCPN (Maoist) and United Democratic Madhesi Front (UDMF) is against the national interest and contravenes the party policy , .

He also questioned the points on settling the proposed and pending issues with neighboring countries.

“What are those proposed issues yet to be resolved?” Gajurel said while addressing the parliament meeting on Thursday. “Nepal and India are yet to sign the treaties on extradition and on allowing Indian air marshals.

The status of Nepal will not even be on par with Bhutan once these two treaties are signed.”

He objected to the wordings “inclusive democratic republic” used in the deal. “It is not in line with our party´s policy which advocates people´s federal republic. Therefore it is not acceptable to us,” he said.

Gajurel said the provision on right to property was also unacceptable. The provision states there will be no infringement, in any form, on the property legally owned by any individual. “Such a provision is unacceptable even to the Nepali Congress, let alone to a communist party like ours,” he explained.

He also criticized the provision on recruiting 10,000 youths from Madhesi communities in the Nepal Army. “If so, what about the youths from Limbu, Tharu or other communities?”

On the return of property seized by the Maoists, Gajurel said the properties can be returned only after the government provides an alternative to those who are using it.

Gajurel also criticized the government decision to hand over the keys of the arms containers to the Special Committee without first settling issues of army integration.

Democracy and Class Struggle is in solidarity with our Italian Comrades and calls for maximum publicity to expose these attacks on democratic rights won by the Italian People.

After no less than four preliminary hearings (25th May, when the GUP even did not come in court,13th July, 15th and 21st September) the judge Alberto Gamberini issued its sentence: the communists are subversive and must be prosecuted! The little attention he paid to lawyers exceptions and arguments proves that the sentence was already decided, by him or more probably by others.

Yesterday was also a day of struggle and solidarity. During the hearing we held simultaneously two rallies. The first in Piazza Nettuno, where a dozen comrades and sympathizers of CARC Party, SLL and ASP let know and denounced the ongoing persecution, distributed more than thousand leaflets, collected more than hundred signatures for the call "No to Communists’ Persecution" and many economic subscriptions. The second rally was held at the entrance of the Court of Bologna, where several comrades chanted slogans and songs of struggle by making our voice heard up in the courtroom. That part of the judiciary and of the forces of repression subjected to the bourgeoisie that wants to try and outlaw us attempted to identify these comrades. So much noise was bothering the celebration of the ritual of the trial: according to their lordships, communists and proletarians should just keep quiet and suffer! The comrades responded promptly and vigorously. The political police and the other cops took revenge for this at the end of the rally tailing five comrades of Milan and stopping them to identify them on the ring road to get out of Bologna, as if they did not know them already well enough!

A political trial opens. On 8th February 2012 at the Court of Assizes of Bologna the first hearing of a trial for "subversive association with terrorist intent" opens against 12 comrades who belong or belonged to the (new) Italian Communist Party, the Association for Proletarian Solidarity Party and the CARC Party, that is the so called "caravan of (n) PCI", the political area who travelled for tens of years until it built the (new) Italian Communist Party.

It is a political trial, the first against the caravan of (n)PCI since 1999, when prosecutors in Bologna, Rome, Naples and Milan started to pass each other the investigations for subversive association against our political area. The Court of Bologna, on behalf of political power and of the intelligence, therefore carries out a real crusade against us that has lasted over 8 years and up to 2008 has been headed by the Public Prosecutor Paolo Giovagnoli. It has been a judicial political persecution carried out with unlimited availability of resources, personnel and equipment: if they had used only one tenth of these resources to investigate and prosecute the profiteers, speculators and criminals who smuggle and wallow in the Municipality of Bologna, preventing them from reiterating their trafficking, certainly the economic and financial situation of the municipality would not be so disastrous!

The Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist) has waged a people’s war for ten years, from 1996 to 2006, extending the area of the Party’s influence to 80% of the country.
In 2006, following an alliance with the seven oppositional parties, the Party became legal, stopped armed struggle, agreed to the confining of weapons in containers under UN control. The Party won general election with 40% vote. Prachanda became Prime Minister, at the head of a government including members of the bourgeois parties, even the feudal, pro-imperialist parties and the revisionist parties (the UML) too, it was a government of national union.

Under such conditions, it was almost impossible to establish a real democracy for the people, and implement any land reform. In spite of all, the Party kept and perhaps is still keeping an important possibility of significant mobilization.

A new Constitution was to be installed, but from one retreat to another of the parties allied to the PCN(M), which had since become Unified Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist), the Constitution has not yet been enacted. Prachanda, stalled in a deadlock, had to resign when the President of the Republic maintained general Katawal at the head of the armed forces. Some members of the Party are still members of Parliament.

Within the Party, the thesis is put forward that Revolution in Nepal includes several phases : people’s war, parliamentary struggle, stopping of the people’s war, preparation of the masses for insurgency.

There is a difference that appeared in practise. What the Party presented as a tactic in order to prepare conditions for insurgency had turned into a strategy for the introduction of a New Democracy within the conditions of the 21st century in conformity with the “Prachanda path”; and all this was presented as something which could be generalized to all countries in the world and advised to all parties, though there was absolutely no proof of the validity of such thesis, just well otherwise.

From one retreat to another, various tendencies and directions emerged in the UCPN(M). One line favours the establishment of a Republic of Parliamentary Democracy of the bourgeois type. Another (centrist), promotes a strategy of mobilizing masses in coordination with the struggle in Parliament and through heading the State apparatus. It seems to us that this line went bankrupt. Another line states that they want to advance the revolution by giving priority to the mobilization of the masses and transforming the Party from within. This seems extremely difficult at present.

In the spirit of maintaining the unity of the Party, rightwing, centrist and revolutionary positions co-exist. In order to preserve unity at all costs and go on with the line which has led to the present situation of deadlock and current paralysis, and in order to regain the leadership of government as Prime Minister, the Central Committee met and suggested to choose as a candidate for Prime Minister a representative of the bourgeois type of democracy.

The obvious problem arising is that the appointment of a Prime Minister issued from the UCPN (Maoist) will be accompanied by the dissolution of the PLA, the surrender of weapons and the integration of part of it into the National Army headed by a high commander from the old Royal Army. In other words, this means the complete liquidation of the PLA and its complete disarming.

Under these conditions, there are two possibilities.

1. Complete surrender, total renunciation to the prospect of insurgency. It has been five years that the Party has been engaged in these transactions, with no significant progress to solve the issue of “power”. What do the masses think about all this? They are either in expectation for the better, or disappointed for the worse.

2. The resumption of the revolutionary fight, which involves mobilizing the masses. “One divides into two” and not “two combine into one”. One has to choose. The rightist line must be denounced to the masse; the only way is to return to the masses because the masses make history and at the same time suffer when their leaders take false, flickering or liquidationist, revisionist positions.

The best support that should make Maoists in the world is to firmly support the second option, to tell things clearly to our comrades who want to lead the revolution to success and assert our positions. The issue that will prevail and be achieved in Nepal is important for the communist movement as a whole and not only for the Nepalese communists. To criticize the false positions, the inadequate tactics adopted, to denounce the liquidators and revisionists etc. is the best support that we can bring to the relatively correct positions and to the comrades who want to continue the struggle for revolution in Nepal. There are Maoists in Nepal who are fighting for revolution and we must support them against the liquidators !

Maoist Communist Party of France

Notes and precisions :

The above text was written a few days before the election of Bhattarai as Prime Minister. The situation has been made clearer since then, and the liquidators have unveiled their real class nature. If Bhattarai has been able to become Prime Minister, it is due to an agreement between Bhattarai and Prachanda on the one hand and, on the other, the Madhesis parties. It is well known that that the Madhesis parties are the representatives of the Indian interests in Nepal. But what is most disturbing are the contents of the above agreement. One point mentioned is the establishment of an “inclusive democratic republic”. It is just the opposite of the Party line of a” Federal People’s Republic”. The agreement also includes the establishment of a separated unit inside the Nepalese Army for 10 000 Madhesis at the very moment when the PLA is being disarmed and when the plans for its integration under command of the Nepalese Army. Furthermore, little time before the liquidation of the PLA through its disarmament, the government headed by Bhattarai ordered the districts governments to hand over all the lands seized by the Maoists during the People’s War. What will the masse be able to keep?

But the liquidators must face opposition and Hari Gyawali, a maoist leader in the Kochila district stated:” We have obtained lands in exchange of our blood. We cannot give this land back as long as the agrarian revolution is not implemented.” “The government will have to face confrontation if it uses coercive means.” “The squatters, the Kamaiyas (former serfs) and the martyrs’ families are using these lands. We shall not give them back as long as a revolutionary agrarian reform is not implemented.” Furthermore, the left wing of the Party is organizing its own training meetings throughout the country. The situation might turn to open confrontation. In any case, the Central Committee is due to meet on September 30th. In the meantime, let us carefully examine a situation which might evolve rapidly.

Comrade Kiran Maoist vice chairman has opposed some of the recent moves made by the party leadership including the handover of keys of arms containers met party chairman Prachanda Friday evening to reaffirm his position.

During the meeting held at Prachanda's Naya Bazaar residence, Comrade Kiran informed about the recent gathering of the central leaders and cadres loyal to him in the capital, a Maoist source told Nepalnews.

The meeting lasted just around 10 minutes. Comrade Kiran aka Baidya went alone to meet Prachanda.

Comrade Kiran's one-on-one with Prachanda comes as he prepares to take on the party leadership on a some major issues, including the decision to form an alliance with the Madhesi parties, in the upcoming central committee meeting of the party.

The internal row in the Maoist party has spilled over into the parliament with Comrade Kiran's supporter party secretary CP Gajurel formally objecting to the handover of the container keys in the parliament yesterday.

Democracy and Class Struggle affirms its support for Comrade Kiran in his battle against Prachanda/Bhattarai Revisionism to rectify the Maoist Party in Nepal.

Thursday, September 22, 2011

Kevin “Rashid” Johnson’s book has some calling him “this generation’s George Jackson,” the Black Panther and “Soledad Brother” assassinated in prison in 1971. Johnson, like Jackson, became a revolutionary behind bars, where he has spent over a decade in solitary confinement. Johnson presents “a powerful commentary on the failure of that which poses as political leadership in our world today” and of “revolutionary transformation while inside” the tomb of incarceration.

Defying the Tomb, Defying Illogic

A Black Agenda Radio commentary by editor and columnist Jared Ball

“Johnson’s is a powerful commentary on the failure of that which poses as political leadership in our world today.”

Earlier this year when we received word of an attempt by Maryland prison officials to ban the recently published book by former Black Panther Party leader and current political prisoner Marshall “Eddie” Conway, we were reminded of the immediacy of the threat ideas can represent to established order. It was a reminder that only specific forms of incarceration and the impact of that incarceration are acceptable for mass consumption. Prison rape, assassination, criminal organization and all kinds of violence waged by and against guards is somewhat acceptable. Even escapes. Everyone routed for Clint Eastwood in Escape from Alcatraz just as we all did for Tim Robbins in Shawshank Redemption. But one aspect of incarceration we are certainly discouraged from truly considering and engaging is revolutionary shifts in consciousness that, through implementation, threaten not only the order imposed on prisoners but that imposed on all of us.

Defying the Tomb, last year’s published book of essays and letters from Kevin “Rashid” Johnson, is another example of the kinds of revolutionary change some undergo while locked up in this country’s prisons, or what Lawrence Bobo calls “internal colonies.” Unlike Conway’s once-banned book, Johnson’s is not the tale of one previously politicized and incarcerated for that political development and action. Johnson’s is one of revolutionary transformation while inside. It describes the particular response some have to imprisonment – both in and out of jail. It describes one man’s – actually, several men’s – grappling with revolutionary concepts, the very ones so many of us who are nominally free consider immature, passé. But in what world do we live where ideas of revolutionary nationalism, historical and dialectical and materialism, anti-colonialism, socialism, communism and violence have no relevance? What utopia have we achieved with the more acceptable and safe discussions of democracy, free-market, pluralism, or indeed, post-racialism?

“In what world do we live where ideas of revolutionary nationalism, historical and dialectical and materialism, anti-colonialism, socialism, communism and violence have no relevance?”

In fact, as Johnson describes, the truly oppressive nature of this society creates a tendency to rebel against insufficient change. And this tendency took hold of him – as it does with many of us – long before becoming consciously revolutionary. The endless cavalcade of euphemisms used to deny the on-the-ground reality did little to prevent Johnson from almost immediately rebelling against the disorganized nature of anti-police sentiment, or as he says, “I’ve always been in something of a running battle with the establishment.” But the threat Johnson represents, a threat that has led so many familiar with him to call him this generation’s George Jackson, is the threat of organizing around an ever-increasingly radical and well-studied analysis of this society. The threat Johnson represents, one that has had him held in solitary confinement for well over a decade, is his unyielding willingness to continue, as he writes, “… studying, refining my views, and testing them in practice.”

Johnson represents a necessary resurgence of deep study, deep commitment to the people and the depth of radical ideas. His is a powerful commentary on the failure of that which poses as political leadership in our world today and the value of the suppressed ideas that, while unpopular, are still correct. After all, it is not simply the similarity in analysis or the fact that the book contains letters written between brothers, comrades striving to improve their ideas and organize around them that begs the comparison to George Jackson; it is the continuity of conditions or the permanency of the relationship held by Black people to the state and the state’s relationship to the world. Johnson’s book, its argumentation, its conclusions, even his artwork are further reminders of the incomplete revolution and the failure of our most popular “leadership” to advance what, as Tom Big Warrior writes in the book’s foreword, is the coming “revolutionary situation… not because of the actions of the Left [but] in spite of the Left’s inaction and decline.”

Defying the Tomb defies more than the incarceration of one man. It defies popular illogic concerning the conditions of the people and what they must do about them. It is a programmatic ideological blueprint for us all.

For Black Agenda Radio I’m Jared Ball. On the web go to BlackAgendaReport.com.

Dr. Jared A. Ball is an associate professor of communication studies at Morgan State University in Baltimore and is the author of I Mix What I Like! A Mixtape Manifesto (AK Press). He can be found online at: IMIXWHATILIKE.COM.

1,Ilham: My arrest came as a result of May 14th - 15th 2008 events, which represent an uprising that brought the students' movement back on the class struggle scene in Morocco. At those days, the students have filed up some of their just and legitimate demands. At the top of these demands was the rejection of a clause allowing the expulsion of militants of the National Union of Students of Morocco, in particular members of the Democratic Basist Path. Since the regime has used all its cards including political arrests and direct physical repression to suppress the struggle of the students' movement, this time it resorted to the new expulsion method.

As a result, the students led different battles reaching a climax in the May 14th – 15th uprising. The uprising witnessed widespread arrests among militants and students, 11 of which the regime would keep, a group that came to be known as "Zahra Bodkour Group" after a female comrade arrested in those events. 10 comrades were jailed for two – three years, while comrade Morad Elchuini is still in jail serving a four-year sentence.

In addition, many arrest warrants were issued for militants who participated in the uprising, I was among them, and on the 12th of October 2010 I was arrested in my family's house.

2.Red flag: How did they treat you, have you been tortured or insulted?

2 Ilham: by its repeated attacks on militants, the regime aims at breaking their will and determination using its repressive methods including the use of verbal abuse, insults, humiliation, physical punishment and beating. The 5 days I spent in the police station were as if I was in a different world, a world full of criminals and torturers who lost their sense of humanity. I was treated as if I was an easy pray for them to show all their brutality, sadism and all their psychopathic illnesses.

However, our principles and convictions remain our best weapon in the confrontation, they strengthen us and make us braver in front of the torturers who find our stares and gazes as painful as loud bullets that hurt, pushing them to start beating and assaulting as an interpretation of their anger, an anger which I only understand as a response to the words we keep saying, words that reflect our adherence to the Mass Line, the line of our impoverished people.

3.Red flag How important was the struggle of your people and international solidarity for your freedom?

3:Ilham: reactionary regimes always try to hide political arrests. That’s why they try to fabricate cheap charges against militants. However, what makes a difference is when the masses cling to their militants, forcing the regimes to confess the real background of those arrests.

The struggle of Moroccan people and all the international movements and organizations which supported me during the arrest was of extreme importance and had a strong echo in presenting my case and the case of all political prisoners. It also had a heavy weight in the political field, while the regime aimed at making Ilham a common criminal, the Moroccan people refused and said this is our daughter, all what she wanted was a democratic, secular, popular and unified education. Hence, all international movements and organization showed their support to our people, something I strongly salute them for, for they clung hardly to our cause and fought for it. I declare my unconditional solidarity with them and their struggles.

4.redflag: Tell us about your goal, real socialism, and the struggle in Marocco for it!

Ilham: I embrace Marxism – Leninism – Maoism as a political and intellectual line, and therefore my aim is to build New Democracy and to fulfill people's national democratic tasks via protracted people's war strategy. This obliges us as militants to be present among the masses in order to organize, mobilize and educate them to reach the quantitative accumulation in their ranks, specially that they are witnessing a wave of massive protests in which their consciousness has mixed with the great role played by February 20th Movement, a movement that is contributing to training the masses on protesting and rallying.

Wednesday, September 21, 2011

I want to thank all of you for your efforts and dedication to Human Rights and Human Kindness, in the past year I have experienced such emotion, joy, sadness and never ending faith.

It is because of all of you that I am alive today, as I look at my sister Martina I am marveled by the love she has for me and of course I worry about her and her health, but as she tells me she is the eldest and she will not back down from this fight to save my life and prove to the world that I am innocent of this terrible crime.

As I look at my mail from across the globe, from places I have never ever dreamed I would know about and people speaking languages and expressing cultures and religions I could only hope to one day see first hand. I am humbled by the emotion that fills my heart with overwhelming, overflowing Joy. I can’t even explain the insurgence of emotion I feel when I try to express the strength I draw from you all, it compounds my faith and it shows me yet again that this is not a case about the death penalty, this is not a case about Troy Davis, this is a case about Justice and the Human Spirit to see Justice prevail.

I cannot answer all of your letters but I do read them all, I cannot see you all but I can imagine your faces, I cannot hear you speak but your letters take me to the far reaches of the world, I cannot touch you physically but I feel your warmth everyday I exist.

So Thank you and remember I am in a place where execution can only destroy your physical form but because of my faith in God, my family and all of you I have been spiritually free for some time and no matter what happens in the days, weeks to come, this Movement to end the death penalty, to seek true justice, to expose a system that fails to protect the innocent must be accelerated.

There are so many more Troy Davis’.

This fight to end the death penalty is not won or lost through me but through our strength to move forward and save every innocent person in captivity around the globe. We need to dismantle this Unjust system city by city, state by state and country by country.

I can’t wait to Stand with you, no matter if that is in physical or spiritual form, I will one day be announcing,

Tuesday, September 20, 2011

The clemency petition of Troy Davis has been denied by the Georgia Board of Paroles and Pardons. The decision came this morning after the board heard pleas from both sides of the case to either condemn Davis to death or let him live. Davis is scheduled to be executed by lethal injection Wednesday night at 7 pm.

Monday, September 19, 2011

UCPN (Maoist) vice chairman Mohan Baidya has said his party leadership is heading towards a surrender and that it has compromised the progressive path.

In an interview with Nepalnews on Sunday Baidya criticised party chairman Dahal aka Prachanda and Prime Minister Baburam Bhattarai, accusing them of forgetting the spirit of the people's war and ignoring the plight of the families of the martyrs and the injured people..

There is a commentary by the interviewer so it is a bit difficult to translate.

basically Kiran says

we are saying not only the army integration but national security plan has to be formed, integration modality has to be fixed and at the minimum the army integration process has to be carried out in a whole package not part by part.

Interviewer: When the opposition parties are talking the same thing even you guys do the same how the Prime minister will full fill the mission of peace and constitution?

Kiran: The prime minister is of the whole not of the part. he has to follow the party decision. our party has not made such decision. our party has never decided to handover the keys and go for the self regrouping process of the PLA.

When the interviewer asks him about the party's disciplinary action he replies "we are not the one, who are breaching the party discipline but Prachanda and Baburam are, therefore they have to face disciplinary action not us"

"In the euro area, everyone is disoriented," said Juncker at the press conference, cracking a joke for the audience after he had mistaken two upcoming deadlines in the Greek debt crisis.

"I hope you don't mean the Commission would be disoriented, that would be impossible by definition," European Commissioner Olli Rehn said as he attempted to entertain the audience of journalists attending the press conference.

"The Commission is not disoriented but the Commission is sometimes disorienting," Juncker continued amid laughter, suggesting the Commission might have lacked coherence in its response to the debt crisis.

Rehn retorted saying he was "trying to navigate in the sea of 17 euro area member states," in an apparent reference to the cacophony of diverging national voices that have fuelled market uncertainty and worsened the eurozone debt crisis.

A few people have asked us to join the organizing that will lead to the September 17th action called by AdBusters Magazine. Our general instinct thus far has been to abstain, mainly for the following reasons:

1) Lack of organizational preparation over months, leading to a lack of preparation in the mobilization of the masses. AdBusters called the action, but gave no organizational capacity to implement it. “Just do it!” Another call from the void.

The call tells us to camp out, but with the little outreach that has been done, who will camp out in the middle of September? Students will be in the midst of classes; there exists no urgent moment for them.

What unions plan to participate?

From what base of people do the organizers plan to mobilize from?

What are the long-term strategic goals?

What is the organizational security for this event? Wall Street is a virtual guarded fortress. The NYPD will be suited with helmets, armed with M-16s, and grouped in mass. How do our friends actually plan to confront the police? Through festival? This seems idealistic.

2) Lack of political orientation, purpose, and plan of action. The haphazard call is followed by haphazard politics, an assortment of populist rhetoric against “Kleptocracy” about the “99%.” There is no effective demand. There is no plan besides sleeping out on the steps of Wall Street on a Saturday. It will not stop the business of Wall Street, because no one will be there.

Whatever our criticisms, we raise them with a movement of people, of friends, in unity-struggle-transformation. We wish for the general success of all friends in their work. However, at the same time, we will not join activity for the sake of activity. This work is no longer a hobby, but merits serious consideration, precisely because the stakes are now turned up for the proletarian masses. Whether or not we participate in September 17th, whether the above questions have answers, we must insist that even if there is a mild success on that day, the path forward is one that must break with this suspect mode of organizing.

We offer friends a critique of this process and a picture of a more resolute path forward. We thought this mode might have lived its last breath at Bloombergville, but it now finds new wings with AdBusters. This mode should very immediately die again.

Democracy and Class Struggle publishes this contribution to the debate on the recent Uprising in Britain. This contribution takes a different view from other contributors and is the view of Harry Powell and not Democracy and Class Struggle.

A great deal has been written about the recent urban disturbances in Britain and a lot of it is nonsense.

For example, Robert Borba of the Revolutionary Communist Party, USA wrote: "… what is taking place on Britain’s streets is a revolt against an oppressive state apparatus that is enforcing an unjust society, an apparatus that has lost much of its legitimacy in the eyes of millions. It is a revolt against state-backed racism … . It is refusal by hundreds of thousands of youth to accept a world where they are destitute, with no jobs and no future." The general idea being put forward here, and by some others, is that the disturbances were a widespread, conscious revolt against the capitalist system. I do not think that the evidence supports this assertion.

The incident that sparked off the rioting was the police shooting Mark Duggan in Tottenham, North London on 4th. August. After an unsatisfactory response from the police to their enquiries the family and friends of Duggan held a protest outside a police station. This attracted other people and developed into more general disorder involving fighting with the police, damage to buildings and looting from shops. This sort of disorder spread to other areas of London and outside in cities such as Birmingham, Manchester and Nottingham. Just as suddenly as these outbursts had begun, they came to an abrupt end on 10th. August when the weather turned wet. As someone commented, "I don’t recollect that the Russian Revolution came to a sudden halt when the weather turned bad."

Chairman Mao said, "No investigation, no right to speak." The present writer does not claim to be some sort of expert on urban disturbances but for forty years in Nottingham I have lived in and near the localities where such outbursts have occurred, both past and present. I have carried out political work in these areas, particularly anti-racist, anti-poll tax, anti-war and anti-voting campaigning. Thus I have some first hand experiences I can draw upon in assessing the reports and analyses of other people.

For the most part the riots occurred in urban areas where there is much unemployment and underemployment, large numbers of ethnic minorities, poor housing and limited social facilities. It is the young people in these areas, particularly black ones, who have high rates of unemployment and very limited opportunities. The class composition is largely working class (proletarian) with some middle strata elements such as small shopkeepers and business proprietors (petit bourgeois) and gentrified enclaves of more affluent business and professional people (manageriat).

RACISM?

One interpretation is that the disturbances were at least partly a reaction by black youth against the discriminately racist treatment of them by the police. In particular the prevalence of ‘stop and search’ operations by the Metropolitan Police in London is seen as generating resentment on the part of black youth. Mark Duggan was black and the police shooting him certainly sparked off the disturbances. However, from the incomplete picture we have of the circumstances of the killing it does seem that Duggan was carrying a gun. In Britain, unlike America, very few people habitually carry handguns and most of those who do so are criminals. The fact of the matter is that knife and gun crime carried out by young people is a serious problem in many British cities, especially London. The police have been criticised, not least by people living in the affected areas, for not doing enough to contain and reduce such crime. (In the Meadows area of Nottingham some years ago the residents were fearful of armed gangs of drugs dealers and demanded that the police institute regular patrols of armed officers.) This is a major reason for police stop and search operations. True, black youth are disproportionately targeted, not always sensitively handled and many perfectly innocent young people caught up in such operations come to feel victimized and resentful towards the police.

Borba and others highlight the racist attitudes and behaviour of the police. Certainly the police are far from being free of racism as they are drawn from the wider society in which racist attitudes are still widespread. Thus some of the police are racists but not all of them. There were similar urban disturbances in Britain in 1981 and in subsequent years. Then almost certainly the main factor was resentment by black and Asian people against racist treatment by the police. As a result much action has occurred within the police forces to try to combat their racism and in my view with some success. Even so there are still many instances of police racism. It is also the case that the Metropolitan Police have seriously bungled operations leading to the deaths of innocent people as in the cases of Jean Charles de Menezes and Ian Tomlinson. It is hardly surprising that many young people, especially in London, treat the police with suspicion.

But it does not necessarily follow that all the black and Asian people participating in the riots were protesting about racist police. Back in 1981 in Hyson Green Nottingham I witnessed a group of mainly black people laying siege to the local police station. At the same time around the corner other people, many of them black, were busy looting the local shops. The former group were probably motivated by resentment of police racism while the latter group were clearly simply out for personal material gain. Back in August in Nottingham several police stations were attacked. An acquaintance lives near one of the targets. She saw a gang of black youth come up her street, on their way to attack the police station, and as they proceeded they trashed every car parked in the street. These belonged to the residents, predominantly council tenants, mostly on lower incomes. (My acquaintance’s car was so badly damaged that it was written off by the insurance company.) It is not plausible to try to explain this incident as a protest against police racism.

It is easy to see why the family and friends of Mark Duggan were upset by the police’s insensitive handling of that case and why some other people interpreted this as a case of police racism. But this is hardly an adequate explanation of the widespread disturbances that occurred in many parts of Britain.

LACK OF OPPORTUNITIES?

Of course, by no means all of those active in the recent disturbances were black and Asian. Many "white" people were actively involved and arrested, especially young ones. Some people, such as Robert Borba, claim that it is the lack of opportunities for young people, of all ethnic groups, in these deprived areas which explains the riots: "It is refusal by hundreds of thousands of youth to accept a world where they are destitute, with no jobs and no future."

Troy Anthony Davis was sentenced to death for the 1989 slaying of off-duty Savannah police officer Mark MacPhail.

Citing doubts about his guilt, national leaders of the NAACP and Amnesty International led hundreds in a protest Friday against executing the man a Georgia jury said killed a Savannah police officer in 1989. Amnesty International declared a Global Day of Solidarity for Troy Davis, with 300 events across the United States and the globe, including in New York, Washington D.C., San Diego, Paris and Oslo.

Former President Jimmy Carter, Pope Benedict XVI and Nobel laureate Desmond Tutu are among those calling for his execution to be halted. And this week, Davis supporters presented 663,000 petitions to the Georgia Board of Pardons and Paroles asking for his life to be spared.

Thursday, September 15, 2011

Chandra Prakash Gajurel ‘Gaurav’, the Secretary of the UCPN (Maoist), is best known for his outspoken personality and reasoning capacity. Gajurel is one of the proponents of the hardline politics within the Maoists led by its senior vice chairman Mohan Baidya ‘Kiran’. Gajurel has been constantly stressing the need of another ‘revolt’ to safeguard the long attained achievements and write a people’s constitution, and has been demanding to review the party’s strategic policy. Gajurel spoke to Chandra Khaki and Bidhan Shrestha for Greatway on various issues ranging from party line, ideological debate, internal rift, peace and constitution, among others. Excerpts:

Your faction stood against the party’s decision to handover the key of container containing arms and ammunitions of the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) to the Special Committee. What are the logics and reasons behind it ?

The key of the container should not have been handed over to the Special Committee before the completion of certain processes like the finalization of modality for integration of two armies, determination of the number of PLA fighters to take part in the integration process, their rank division and the regrouping of PLA fighters. To handover the key of the container before the completion of these processes is to make the PLA fighters unarmed and the integration process cannot take place making the PLA fighters unarmed. According to the principal of army and other armed forces, the key of the container containing arms and ammunitions has its own significance and it has its own procedure to keep command on it.

The Nepal Army (NA) never hands over the key of the arms and ammunition storage to the Defense Minister or even the Prime Minister and they can not ask to take control over it. We should not forget that Peoples liberation army is also an army and there is no questions of hand-overing the key without reaching to any conclusion about its respectful integration.

Therefore, it is not the SC to whom the key should have been handed. The key should have been handed over to the commander of new force formed after the integration, which can either be from PLA or NA. It is a rule of the army and it should be followed. Therefore, the handover of the key of the containers of PLA does not indicate a respectful integration. This will only guide towards capitulation.
According to you what should be the modality for the integration?

We had proposed two modality for the integration of two armies. First, we had proposed to form a separate security force containing PLA fighters only under the directorate of the Nepal Army. We had proposed that the new security force to be a combatant force and provide them the responsibility of border security. However, other parties were skeptical that the Maoists would use the force for their own benefit. So, we again proposed to form a mixed security force commanded by PLA fighter in which PLA fighters would cover 50 per cent and remaining 50 per cent by the personnel from NA and Armed Police Force. As other parties have already rejected the first option, we are holding discussions to forge an agreement in the second modality for integration.

What should be number of PLA fighters for the integration?

I strongly believe that the number should not be ascertained in advance. The number should be fixed after holding with the PLA fighters themselves because there are many fighters who are injured, who may want self retirement, many female fighters are now mother and some may turn out unfit according to the fitness standard of new force. If we fix the number in advance what will the others competent fighters do? They might feel that they have been ignored and may resort violence again.

A large number of PLA fighters who had supported your party during the People’s War were declared disqualified and forced to leave the cantonment. Those who supported you during armed struggle are now living in a misery. Why your party has ignored them?

This is an outcome of unscientific procedure followed during the rehabilitation of the disqualified PLA fighters. Without proper management of their future, they were forced to head out with limited cash. They were just handed money without showing what to do next. So, this problem is likely to prolong. The disqualified PLA fighters have already captured the party headquarters twice in protest. The party has somehow has been successful to convince the disqualified PLA fighters to be calm and wait for the time being but this is not the permanent solution. Even if we provide them financial support, the question for their living will rise as they consume it. Again, they will come to party headquarter and raise their voices. They are thrown out from the cantonment without settling their issues. Therefore, if a scientific and respectable approach is not followed in favour of these ‘disqualified’ combatants and during the integration of two armies as well, the nation is likely to be hit by yet another disaster.

It is said that the issue regarding the handover the key was raised after the disagreement in the party regarding allotment of ministries . Is it true?

This is not true. We were close to agreement regarding the division of ministries within the party. Dr Baburam Bhattarai had asked me to join the government as Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Foreign Affairs as Chairman Prachanda had asked for Finance Ministry. Although chairman had asked for the ministry, he did not have any competent candidate with the adequate knowledge in economics. Therefore, there was not really any big disagreement and the issue was almost solved. The problem started when they abruptly handed over the key to the SC.

There are also reports that your protest has been backed by COMPOSA and RIM. What do you say?

This is not true. Why should COMPOSA and RIM back our protest? COMPOSA is not an organization which directs a party. It just a coordination committee of various organizations. Likewise, RIM is also not very active recently. It is completely a choreographed propaganda.
Your faction has time and again demanded the revision and assessment of the policy, tactics and strategy opted by the party after the Chunwang meeting. Does it mean that your faction believes that the policy and strategy followed after the Chunwang meeting is theoretically incorrect?

When a party formulates a policy, it can have both positive and negative outcomes. Therefore, the time has now arrived to evaluate the policy opted by the party after the Chunwang meeting as it has failed to meet the expectation of the decision made during the meeting. I want to put forward an example to justify my points. During the Chunwang meeting, peace and constitution writing process was termed as party’s tactics and a new peoples’ movement should be completed standing on this base. In practice, however, it turned as the strategy of the party. Thus, it has created a threat of conclusion of our revolution in the midway. The party is slowly forgetting populistism. That is why we have demanded the assessment of the decisions made during the Chunwang meeting sooner or later. I think, general convention of the party will seek the solution for this.

After the Chunwang meeting, your party has adopted the federal democratic system abandoning the line of New Democracy as the minimum program of the party stating that this should be the transitional mean to reach in New democracy owing to the current national and international situation. Do you think it was a correct decision?

There was clearly mentioned in the Chunwang meeting that federal democratic system will be the tactics of the party but it is implemented as the strategy in practice. There is no concrete base for doing this. This is why, we have demanded to revise the policies, tactics and strategies adopted by the party after Chunwang meeting.

Do you mean that party is abandoning the policy of New Democracy ?

Exactly, this is happening in the practice.

But the leaders of the party has clearly stating that they have adopted federal democratic system as the transitional means to move ahead towards the new democracy. According to them, going through this step is necessary in the present national and international context.

We don’t have any differentiating view that the federal democratic system should be taken as the party’s tactics. We had decided to complete the new people’s revolution making federal democratic system its base. However, instead of making it a base, we have been trapped in the same. The party has slowly started to renounce the ideology of revolution.

In which level is the contradiction within the Maoists, is it in ideological level or just limited to the political level?

The contradiction is at the political and tactical level up to now. However, politics and tactics is also related with ideology. Currently, we are holding debates with in the party referring it as a political and tactical contradiction but it is certain that in the due course it will turn into an ideological debate.

Your faction has been portrayed as the anti peace and constitution due to your constant demand for revolt and revolution? What is your say?

I think we have been portrayed incorrectly. Recently, we had protested the decision to handover the key, it was also misinterpreted and a disinformation campaign was launched against it. We have been portrayed as a force dead set against peace and constitution. However, we have never said that we do not want the completion of army integration, we have only demanded a scientific and respectful integration. Similarly, we have never said that we do not want constitution, we have only demanded a people’s federal republican constitution, which is not only the policy of our faction but also the policy of the party.
Why do you constantly raise the issue of people’s revolt?

The issue of people’s revolt has not been raised by us only. Six days strike in the past was also the part of the exercise for the people’s revolt under the policy adopted by the party. It was raised by the party as a whole. No one has ever said that there should not be people’s revolt. There is a strong need for people’s revolt as the aspirations of the people have not been met and none of their problems have been solved. The people want to see change in the field, which has not been fulfilled. Therefore there is a need of yet another movement. The transitional democratic republican system has turned out to be failure. So, the people’s movement has been essential to establish people’s federal republican system. Although other factions of the party speak of establishing federal republican system, they have failed to put it into practice. For instance, during the four point agreement inked with the Madhesi Front, the inclusive democratic republican is mentioned instead of people’s federal republican system. Therefore, the party leadership is turning reformist setting aside the path shown by yesterday’s revolution.

The famous Dhobighat alliance had helped Dr Baburam Bhattarai to be elected as the new Prime Minister of the country. However, the alliance has been broken and a new alliance with the leadership, against whom the Dhobighat alliance is formed. How do see this?

This is true that the Baburam Bhattarai’s faction have left the Dhobighat alliance and swayed towards a new alliance. Although that was an alliance within the party, he has now come close to the party chairman.

Then do you see that after Bhattari’s accent to the throne of prime minister, the practice of centralized leadership will resume in the party, against which Dhobighat alliance was formed ?

Yes, we again see the threat of party leadership being centralized and making hefty decision solitarily. Some recent activities has also indicated the same. For instance, the party had formed a seven member dialogue team to hold discussions with the Madhesi Morcha during the Prime Ministerial election. However, the four point deal was inked only by keeping remaining five members of the team in bay. Similarly, the decision to handover the key was also made by only two people in the party leadership. If they had to make the decision, they should have at least called the party official’s meeting and informed. Such meeting can be organized with in an hour but our leadership doesn’t bother to do so and handed over the key without the cosine of all party officials.

Recently there has been statements that those who does not want to stay in the party can leave the party which clearly reflects the conflict within. Isn’t there threat of party’s split?

Yes, there is threat of party’s split but not from us. The threat is there from those who are making such statements. They are the pro-splinters. We strongly condemn these ill-fated statements.

We have never asked anyone to leave the party but demanded the implementation of line endorsed by the party by all. Our demand to the leadership is to retransform themselves correcting their derailed activities.

What do you think is the procedure to resolve the contradiction and conflict emerged within the party?

There are so many procedure developed with in the international communist movement to resolve the conflict and contradiction and save the party from being split. In the present context, many issues of debates are not limited within the party. Therefore, there is a need of holding debate in external level also. Therefore, a healthy and well-managed debate should be continued both in internal level as well as external level to solve this intra-party struggle. Along with this, the party should be taken ahead unified. The issue of adding this procedure to solve the conflict has been raised but is yet to be implement. Probably, the next Central Committee meeting of the party will endorse this procedure as well.

It is said that after the economic and cultural disparity has amplified after the party’s induction in the peace and constitution writing process. Although many committees were formed to solve this, they have been effective were unsuccessful to manage this. Now, many say that this is slowly turning the revolutionary party into a bourgeoisie party. What do you think is its remedy?

Yes, it has been issue of concern in our party. Therefore, purification of the party is the best remedy to end this disparity. Purification here means to make those responsible admit their mistake, allow self-criticism and rectification and punish the guilty. The more effective procedure can be to take the whole party for struggle to complete the revolution which has been left in the middle. This include preparation for people’s revolt, awareness campaign and various movements. Therefore, the problem of economic and cultural disparity can be solved either through class struggle or purification within the party. The leadership has failed to provide any program for struggle, so how can the party purify. Moreover, the process of purification should be started from the top, but this is not happening. This is the main reason behind the failure of various committees as well.

You are constantly emphasizing on the need of people’s revolt but don’t you see the possibility of strong suppression over your movement in the present adverse global and national context?

No, I don’t think so because we have not said to begin any armed struggle or have plans to confront with the security forces. As already the nation has gone through a historic transformation and Monarchy already ousted, there is not need to fight with the security forces. If the movement for ensuring peace and constitution is suppressed then, it will only spark yet another people’s movement.
Is there any thing you would like to add?

We have been deliberately projected as the anti peace and constitutional force by various media when we are in fact demanding a scientific and respectful integration and people’s constitution. If your media portrays our reality, then it would be easy for the people to understand the ground reality.